Here is How Your Startup Can Avoid a Failure

Starting a company or building a product is an easy part, sustaining operations or making them grow is the biggest challenge.

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By Sania Gupta

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Are you scared of getting paranoid because your newly established venture is jolting in the nascent stage?

Are the profits slackening?

Are the sales dwindling already?

You have studied the markets and finances, yet the idea of a start-up intimidates you. Though 90% of the startups fail, let's get logical and look at rest 10%. You should not call any step a mistake, each step is a learning opportunity.

Here are a few aspects you should keep in mind to join the league of accomplishers:

1. Walk in the shoe of the customer

"Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you will tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves", summarizes Steve Job signifying the importance of customers.

You need to communicate with the end user of the product with whatever means of communication that suits them and be ready to accept feedback, be it negative and gear up to solve their problems and struggles. The feedback will be the basis to build, modify and refurbish the product. By embracing feedback, you are bound to boom and flourish in every way possible.

2. Unique proposition

You need to create a unique brand proposition of your product. The need of the utility of the product has to be created and the value proposition has to be communicated loud and clear to the customer. You need to make sure that the product is developed keeping in mind it fulfills the need of the user. What is more significant is that the customers understand the utility well and realizes the need for it.

"One product can be life-changing, game-changing," says Pravin Daryani, CEO of A&A Business Consultancy. Let's examine the examples of Maggi to Nestle, Whole wheat flour to Patanjali, Coca-Cola and the like where just one product changed the market statistics for the company.

3. Effective calculations

You need to test the product viability before launch, test, validate and determine the core features. You have to focus on using the feedback as a basis to build the next version of the product. Each step has to be logically derived on the basis of calculations. No step should be based on intuition and gut feeling. Everything should be derived from calculations and logically driven.

4. Invest in the right team

Michael Jordon rightly highlights the importance of the right people working as a team," Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence win championships".

You need to make sure you have the best people from diverse fields and together as a team you can maneuver any challenges and pitfalls. Do not emphasize on a one-man team. A balanced team builds empires and helps you thrive in each situation.

5. Enhance leadership skills

You need to enhance your leadership skills and focus on personal development. Keep building your acumen and never stop learning. "A great leader can steer the radar smoothly in all stormy times," seconds Mr. Ashish Gupta, proprietor of Reva Enterprises.

You have to keep your technology and software updated and be flexible too. You need to communicate, motivate, delegate and channelize the energies of the team to be successful.

Conclusion: Startups are based on novel ideas, which if synched with market demands, can work wonders. Starting a company or building a product is an easy part, sustaining operations or making them grow is the biggest challenge. Retain your calm, invest wisely in your team and go step by step. Just because the market is volatile and 80% startups shut down, you need to envisage future and focus on the profitability and viability in the long run.

Sania Gupta

Freelancer

Sania Gupta is also Founder and CEO, Digital Kangaroos, an author, entrepreneur, marketer and blogger. And as a career coach at My Study Destination, she has helped thousands of students realize their dreams.

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